We’ve touched on this in several LinkSwarms, but Ukraine has slowly but steadily been pushing back Russia’s territorial gains, mainly in on the eastern front, to the point where Russian may end the year with essentially zero gains.
- “On the front lines in the Ukrainian East, the nation’s defenders are in command, and they’re settling into the frozen winter months in a better strategic position uh than they’ve had for a very long time. From May to October of 2026, Ukraine worked quietly on Operation Vivaldi, a four-phase counteroffensive that completely thwarted Russia’s offensive against the key fortress city of Sloviansk. But now, the problems that Russia faced during Operation Vivaldi are spreading outward. There’s more and more sections of the Russian front lines beginning to come apart. For two months in a row, Russia’s lost more territory than it’s gained, and the year’s territorial exchange is already nearly equal.”
- Since we’ve covered Operation Vivaldi, we’re going to skip over the recap details to focus on the current situation.
- “Ukraine’s other gains haven’t been quite so dramatic, nor have they been unveiled to the public with such a neat headline ready presentation from Kiev. But like the information blackout that Ukraine imposed over the Lyman salient, the relative quiet seems to be making Ukrainian fighters more effective, not less, as they recapture villages, open fields and other chunks of territory and pockets all across the front lines. As one Russian mill blogger, Anatalie Radof, explained the situation when he first picked up on the issue in early October, quoting, ‘There are so many alarming signals that are so loud that it’s strange that people aren’t hearing them. In short, it’s disaster. Autumn will bring many unpleasant surprises.'”
- “Take the situation in eastern Dnipropetrovsk oblast in the center east of Ukraine. There Russian forces had been crawling across new territory since March 2025 with their peak territorial gains coming somewhere around February of 2026, depending on your war monitor of choice. But starting in February, Ukraine’s air assault forces and a range of other highly capable units began a multi-directional counteroffensive. By August, around the same time that the news started to pick up around Operation Vivaldi, Ukraine had liberated over 25 settlements in the area. And if you thought Vivaldi was impressive because it returned about 250 km of territory, then hold on to your seat. By August, the Dnipropetrovsk counteroffensive had taken back nearly 750 km. And from there, it’s only continued. Russia’s basically been pushed out of the oblast where it only ever really gained a foothold with those 750 km, while Ukrainian forces continue to push down several rivers and highways.”
- “And then there’s the situation around the rural locality of Komar, where the recent fighting has been especially intense. According to open source observers, Ukrainian troops managed to cross a key strategic river in the area several weeks ago, pushing into territory that several Russian units badly want to try and defend. Despite the fierce resistance in this area, Russian forces have suffered setbacks in several villages near Komar. And they’re at risk of losing a settlement called Shevchenko, which happens to be right next to a deposit of about 1.2 million tons of lithium rich ore. The Russian defense has been complicated even further because of the rather poorest nature of the front line in this area where Ukrainian units seem to have been able to sneak through and set up well-concealed positions where they’re very hard to track down and where their drone operators can help to convert the entire area into a gray zone where it’s unsafe to move in the open.”
- “Ukrainian forces have managed to stonewall the Russians in two key areas. The destroyed city of Vovchansk in northern Kharkiv oblast, and the city of Kupiansk, also in Kharkiv oblast about 80 km to the southeast. Russia had been trying to establish control over both of those areas across 2026 sending infiltrator forces into Vovchansk in large numbers and trying to cross the critical Oskil River which splits the city of Kupiansk in two. In both areas, Russia appears to have exhausted the local supply of troops that could be dedicated to offensives without sacrificing Moscow’s ability to defend the territory it already controls.”
- “About 170 km to the northwest of Vovchansk, the large city of Sumy spent most of the year threatened by Russian forces as they expanded to capture abandoned villages and threatened to launch a new prong of Moscow’s overall offensive. But now, Ukrainian forces have reportedly taken back some of those abandoned villages and pushed Russia out of others. That’s an especially bitter pill for the Kremlin to swallow because it had used that abandoned, relatively easy to capture territory to give itself a cheap bump on this year’s territorial exchange count. But as they say, easy come, easy go.”
- “After the loss of the Lyman salient and after Russia’s catastrophically high casualties this year, it doesn’t appear as if Russia has the spare forces to dedicate to even consolidate control of that territory, let alone to threaten Sumy in 2027.”
- “Just a bit north of Lyman, Ukraine has managed to open up a new vector of attack. moving north and east from the settlement of Borova. In that zone, Ukrainian defenders have been able to penetrate a full 5 kilometers past the front line. According to local sources, that’s a fairly major problem for Russia, since it means that Russian troops have been pushed away from strategically important points nearby, including the local section of the Oskil River. When those gains near Borova are combined with the aftermath of Operation Vivaldi, they form a 135 km long section of front line where Ukrainian forces are advancing continuously, eating away into a pocket of Russian territory that Moscow views as essential if it’s going to stand any chance at attacking Ukraine’s fortress belt cities on multiple fronts.”
- “Finally, Ukraine has kept up its progress near Lyman even after the conclusion of Operation Vivaldi. By late October, Ukraine had managed to create a gray zone all the way to the settlement of Yampil, which if you’re not terribly familiar with eastern Ukrainian geography, basically allowed Ukraine to cut off and encircle a number of entrenched Russian defenders.”
- “By continuing to pressure that area, Ukraine is able to come uncomfortably close to the border of Luhansk oblast, one of the four Ukrainian oblasts that Russia illegally annexed and the only one that’s almost completely under Russian control, aside from a few tiny Ukrainian held pockets.”
- “Russian mil blogger accounts have even raised the possibility that Ukraine could threaten the occupied Luhansk city of Severodonetsk, [the] key industrial hub that was mostly destroyed in 2022, but one that still anchors a lot of the economic value of Russia’s Luhansk conquests.”
- Ukraine’s “defenders can now say that in 2026, Russia’s invasion barely progressed at all. And it’s worth checking the calendar because there are nearly seven weeks left in 2026, at a moment when it’s entirely feasible that Ukraine could force a net zero territory exchange before the year is out.”
- “Ukraine’s been able to basically hold Russia to zero territorial gain. In fact, that figure might tick all the way down to absolute zero before this year is out. Meaning that Ukraine would have taken an entire year off Russia’s invasion plan, eliminated hundreds of thousands of Russia’s soldiers, and forced the expenditure of incredible Russian resources for nothing. If Ukraine holds Russia to zero gain, then at Moscow’s current pace, Russia could invade forever and still get nowhere.”
- “A lot of Ukraine’s recent gains tie back to Operation Vivaldi and the integration of several overlapping tactics into a new comprehensive approach that Russia struggled to deal with.”
- “The basic process that Ukraine used went something like this. First, Ukraine used mid-range strike drones to fly behind the Russian front line and destroy logistical depots, supply lines, munition stockpiles, heavy equipment, and areas where Russian troops were massing in advance of localized attacks. Those strikes badly disrupted the Russian front and made further Russian advances basically impossible. Then Ukraine sent in the UGVs to create big overwhelming attacks in specific areas of the front line and then relied on a combination of reconnaissance and attack drones in the sky to pick out and target Russian positions as they gave themselves away. Then came the special forces, sneaking through contested territory while the Russians were focused elsewhere, minimizing casualties on the Ukrainian side while maximizing casualties for the Russians.”
- “All the while, Ukraine kept that information blackout that we mentioned earlier and put the Russians in an impossible position because Russian commanders are under so much pressure to keep advancing. They didn’t really have the option to pull their troops out. And because they couldn’t rely on third party war monitors, the media, or other sources to try and track Ukraine’s attacks, they were left blind. All the better for Ukraine. Kiev even managed to deny the area to Russian drone flights without compromising Ukrainian drones in the same area. The best that Russia could do was hammer the general vicinity with glide bombs, which achieved very little. That combination of assets, tactics, and information security seemed to be a good mix for Ukraine to try and use elsewhere.”
- “But when the same approach was applied in the areas we’ve just mentioned, from Borova to Komar to the villages outside Sumy, Ukrainian forces have discovered basically the same problem again and again, a near total lack of a Russian defense in depth.”
- “Basically, defense in depth means a layered defense where troops can all watch each other’s back. There are enough reserves and people positioned in fallback areas to contain any advances by an adversary. You get the picture. Russia, however, didn’t have that. Instead, Ukraine has started pushing on relatively quiet areas of the front line and found that Russian defenses had been drawn way down as experienced troops and their equipment are required elsewhere. Russia still left enough troops in those areas to keep local Ukrainian defenders occupied, but not enough to deal with what might happen if Ukraine suddenly sent additional units to their sector.”
- “When those additional units arrived and started applying Vivaldi style tactics, they found that the Russians weren’t just unprepared. They found that when they broke through the first lines of defense, they broke all the way through and could start to attack in different directions to press the advantage even further.”
- “On the Russian side, those problems have been made worse by the changing environment. As autumn turns to winter, the leaves lose their trees and the other vegetation withers away, which is a real problem if you’re a Russian soldier trying to hide out and avoid Ukrainian drones. The problem goes in both directions. But Ukrainian drone reconnaissance and its frontline attack capabilities tend to be a good deal better than Russia’s at this stage in the war, especially in areas where Ukraine has dedicated extra drone dreams to try and force a breakthrough. In these critical months where the leaves are gone but the snow hasn’t yet arrived, it’s much easier to spot the openings of Russian bunkers and trenches and anybody who was trying to hide out under tree cover is well royally screwed. Drone strikes become more lethal and Russian offensive infiltrations become unbelievably dangerous.”
- “On the Ukrainian side, meanwhile, units appear to be thriving under their new military chief, Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi. Ukrainian units often say that he is a stark departure from his predecessor Oleksandr Syrskyi in ways that they greatly appreciate. But perhaps Drapatyi’s greatest gift to Ukrainian forces is his willingness to get out of the way. Instead of Syrskyi-style micromanagement, Drapatyi has extended broad latitude for frontline commanders to do whatever works in their sector. Decision-making is much quicker. units are more empowered to rely on technology and preserve lines, and they’re able to employ the tactics that are most relevant to their situation, without the need to get those decisions approved or revised ahead of time. And just as important is Ukraine’s broad adoption of the UGV.”
- Details of Lyman UGV assault skipped. “Ukrainian UGVs are conducting similar operations at a greater and greater pace all across the front line and their sheer numbers are only increasing as time goes on.”
- “There are three areas that really stick out where Russia continues to grind forward. A retrenchment of its forces and a subsequent drone push near Oleshky after a recent local ceasefire. a secondary assault near the city of Huliaipole in the south and a major offensive thrust in and around the city of Dobropillia. Back in August and September, Russia transferred an estimated 1,200 additional drone crews near Dobropillia in an attempt to reach around the rear of the fortress belt and encircle it. The loss of the Lyman salient to the north has made that more difficult, but Russia’s had to double down on the Dobropillia offensive to the south in order to have any chance at achieving its objectives. there. Russian forces continue to infiltrate constantly, trying to gain as much of a foothold as they can and slowly push Ukraine backward in the process. And yet, even in this area, there’s reason to believe that Ukraine has the upper hand, despite allowing its forces to move steadily backward.”
- Bit on Russia’s staggering death toll skipped.
- “At this point in the war, Ukraine’s path to victory is as clear as it is grim. Destroy Russia’s forces to the maximum extent possible so that Russia simply can’t avoid running out of soldiers unless it launches a mass mobilization that could bring down Russian society.”
- “But if Ukraine wants to use its tools and tactics to eliminate as many Russian forces as possible as quickly as possible, well, Russia’s got to have a reason to commit those troops somewhere. And under these circumstances, Russia will overcommit wherever it’s still moving forward. To be clear, if Ukraine is losing ground anywhere, that’s still bad. Ukraine shouldn’t be getting invaded in the first place. But Russia still has enough excess forces that it can commit to an offensive somewhere. And now that the leaves have fallen, now that other routes for Russia have been cut off, Ukraine is building the ultimate meat grinder around Dobropillia. Whether that’s enough to force an eventual Russian collapse, well, for now, nobody knows.”
And with Russian forces spread so thin everywhere, the time might finally be approaching for Ukraine to launch another big offensive on the southern front…
